New MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli will warn of “the grave threat posed by Russia” when he makes his first public speech later.
It will highlight so-called hybrid warfare, which includes incidents such as cyber attacks and drones suspected of being launched near critical infrastructure by Russian proxies.
Ms Metreweli will describe this as “a serious threat posed by an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia”.
Referring to the war in Ukraine, he will insist that Britain will keep up pressure on President Vladimir Putin on behalf of Ukraine.
Ms Metreweli, who took over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in the autumn, is the first woman to head Britain’s overseas spy agency. He replaced Sir Richard Moore on 1 October.
Monday’s speech will highlight recent sanctions on Russian entities accused of carrying out information warfare, as well as two China-based companies sanctioned for their “indiscriminate cyber activities against the UK and its allies”.
Western sanctions have certainly hurt Russia’s economy, driving its exports eastward to China and India. But they have singularly failed to change President Putin’s determination to wage war against Ukraine until he gives in to their demands for territory and, ultimately, loyalty to Moscow.
It is also clear from Ms Metreweli’s speech that an area of particular interest for the new spy chief is technology.
He joined MI6 in 1999 and rose to the top position through Q Branch. Named after the fictional MI6 division in Ian Fleming’s spy books, this is the real-life, internal, top-secret part of the Secret Intelligence Service that designs the kind of devices and gadgets that allow agents to communicate with their handlers, without being detected or caught.
In his subsequent speech he is expected to call on all his intelligence officers to master the technology, “not just in our laboratories, but in the field, in our craft… We must become as comfortable with the lines of [computer] code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python as we are in multiple languages.”
Python, a programming language, may surprise some as an example to choose since it has been around for over three decades. But his point will not go unnoticed by the men and women who have chosen to work in the dark world of espionage.
In an age where data is key, where spies can no longer rely on false identities when biometric scanning can unmask them in seconds at borders and checkpoints, MI6 needs to prove it can still be relevant.
Separately, Chief of the Defense Staff Sir Richard Knighton will on Monday call for a “whole of society approach” to build national resilience, in the face of growing threats and uncertainty.
In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London, Sir Richard is expected to say that defense and resilience must be a higher priority for everyone, not just the military.
It is the latest in a series of warnings that the UK must be more prepared than now to deal with a growing volume of threats.
Sir Richard is expected to say the situation is more dangerous than he has known in his entire career.
Russia has made it clear that it wants to challenge, limit, divide and ultimately destroy NATO, he will say.
Britain’s response must go beyond simply strengthening the armed forces. Deterrence, he will say, involves harnessing the power of the UK, from its universities to industry, the rail network and the NHS.
“A new era for defense doesn’t just mean our military and our government stepping up, as we are doing, it means our entire nation stepping up,” he will say.
To address a skills gap highlighted in a recent Royal Academy of Engineering report, Sir Richard will speak about the need to work with industry and young people and announce £50m for new defense colleges of technical excellence.
In recent weeks, both France and Germany have outlined plans for voluntary national service.
Last year, the then Conservative government put forward its own mandatory proposals, which Labor dismissed as a gimmick.
But the debate over how Britain as a whole should respond to an increasingly uncertain world is accelerating.
